Holding Sway

They were up in the gardens, ready to monetise the sunset. Poppy and Jay. The sky had the mood-light quality of an underwear shoot: soft, suntanned, both oiled and diffuse. Poppy wore a sheer, nude, diaphanous, faintly flowing number, not meant to add but to subtract, to place in relief, to create contrast. A dress not to seek attention with. This, because her black Prada handbag was the centrepiece. She was surplus to her bag; sunset was surplus to her bag; Jay and their relationship were surplus to her bag.

Jay said, “Yeah, this’ll be perfect right there. It’s already going that sort of like pink peach colour. Shot list says we want it to be full sunset, like that fucking orangey, burning type look. Like, all over here the clouds will be red and the sun’s coming down and’ll go that bright shining like, really like fiery glowing sunset style.”

““Sunset style”?” said Poppy.

“You know. When it’s like, boom. Like, when it’s popping off. The sun sunmaxxing, you get me.”

He had the camera. Earlier, they’d finished for their next post, mostly together as a couple. And they already had one of just Jay. Needed therefore was closure, was the last image: Poppy, alone.

“Here good?” she said.

“Yup. I think so. Yeah. It looks so good with that rock formation. They’re so photogenic. Genuinely perfect.”

“Great.” She paused. “When? Should I pose now?”

“We need to wait for the sunset.”

Poppy turned and looked into the sun. It was definitely still day. It maintained a yellow equipoise. And it wavered, wobbled, moving more around itself than downwards. “How long does that look to you? About, say, ten minutes?”

“Ten. Maybe fifteen?”

“Let’s get a few shots in the meantime then.”

She posed: they regrouped: it was agreed that without sunset popping off the pics were generally flat. So they waited, each scrolling. An elderly man, probably Italian, wandered into the frame of where the shot would be. He stood like a tripod, leaning into his cane. Poppy and he were at the very edge of the fencing at the cliffside, chickenwire coming unfurled, a hundred feet to fall beneath them. Sea, and rocks, and wild olives and wild capers, and woodbine, bougainvillea, myrtle—Poppy knew them because she’d looked them up on an app.

Now the old man sighed, looking over the cliffs at the sea towards the sun, as if he comprehended something more movingly beautiful than they, or as if he could perceive a better Instagram post. Poppy watched him. His eyes blinked slow, with the almost affected slowness of an older person. Could eyes unconsciously blink that slowly? They took over a second to reopen. He was basking. She had never seen basking before—never seen it, or never realised what it was. Marbella, Rio, Bali, Gozo, Naxos: she and Jay’d never basked. Reflected onto from the light of the strong sun, his skin adopted that fucking orangey, burning type look. He had a moustache, shaped like a flight pillow. He had incredible dark rich smooth Brazil-nut eyes. He smiled into the sunset, which was approaching now. Poppy hit her vape.

“Is he gonna like—”

“Jay, don’t—”

“I doubt he speaks English, like—hey bro. Bro. We’re about to try and take a photo here if you don’t mind. Bro. Poppy he’s literally just gonna stand there and we need to get the shot in a sec.”

“We’ve got time. He’ll move.”

“What is he even doing?”

“He’s just looking.”

“Well it’s weird. Why he’s been looking for so long.”

“It hasn’t been that long.”

“Is he looking at the sun? Does he not know you’re not supposed to do that?”

“He’s looking near the sun. He’s looking out at sea. At the boats. The clouds.”

The old man, at this, seemed to have discerned their meaning—he turned, lurching with his cane, to face towards Jay. Jay lowered his phone. The old man’s smile remained. But his face was in shadow. He took a step, and the sunset became sensational. Behind him it quivered with liquid power, like a bird’s-eye view into volcano. He took another step. The floor was cracked with scrub roots. He swung his cane again. He stepped. It caught, as he stepped, and the contrary momentum of his legs and his stuck stick made him fall. He tottered twice, and his legs ceased to help. He came down hard on a hip. There was a crack.

“Oh my God,” Poppy said in a burst.

“Fuck.” Jay ran forward. “Fuck whadda we do? Call 999.”

“It’s not 999 here.”

“911? Put something under his head.” Jay said this but then himself supported the man’s head, whipping his t-shirt off (glorious pecs, abs, lats, delts) for a makeshift cushion. He moaned. His eyes were livestock’s, in trusting fearfulness. Many times, he screwed them away under wrinkles. His hands loosely patted himself, by the hip, by the lumbar. The last joints of each finger turned in the wrong direction; the nails were clubbed. He couldn’t seem to believe that English speakers were the people caring for him.

“Are you all right, sir? Signore? 911 isn’t working,” she said.

“I don’t know what the number is here. Fucking Europe. Fucking—I thought we Brexited.”

“Wait. Emergency dial. It’s calling.”

“Fuck. Yes. Are you okay? Are you okay? Can you feel your legs? Mate?”

“Do they even have ambulances on the island Jay?”

They stayed with him, in panicked pietà, while flawless sunset seared, mellowed, bruised, passed.

*

Poppy and Jay weren’t brought in the ambulance with him—the world’s smallest, it turned out, a tuk tuk of a two-seater, actually profiled in the Guinness Book of Records—and so stayed, in faded day, at the clifftop. Then twilight. Then dusk. They’d been so perturbed they hadn’t needed to scroll. They just sat, as little stars picked themselves out in the sky.

“What a weird day,” Jay said. “Well. We’re going back tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh shit. But so there won’t be a sunset tomorrow we’ll get to see.”

“No.”

“How are we going to fulfil the shot list then?”

“Does it even matter if we fulfil it or not?”

“Of course it matters Poppy. Oh my fucking god. This is so shit. We might not even get paid.”

“Chill Jay. That man could be dead for all we know.”

“Dead from a fall?”

“Well, yeah, duh, that’s like number one old-person-dying-cause.”

“I just think we’re fucked. We have 2k riding on this.”

“It’ll be fine. We can do sunrise instead if we have to.”

Jay was on his phone. “No. No. Weather shit tomorrow. Clouds. Unseasonable clouds.”

“It’s fine. We have five pics.”

“Not the full shot list.”

“Well ring Steven if it matters so much to you.”

“What? Poppy? What? It should matter to you as much? Our livelihood?”

“We’ll make more—”

“Fuck it I’m ringing Steven.”

“Go ahead. It’s chill—”

“Yep, Steven, hey Steven yeah so, bit of an odd one. Yeah so we—yep, Capri, yep—we were taking our sunset photos, last one of Poppy with the Prada bag, yeah, yeah, exactly, yep, and so anyway so this old Italian guy’s there and it’s a nightmare right, cos we’re worrying and he’s sort of in shot and not moving, and he’s sort of just at the edge of the cliff staring. So anyway sunset’s coming down, yep, yep, yep, no, no he fucking decks it, like goes flying and breaks his hip and we’re calling the ambulance, so—no, exactly, that’s what I’m saying, we didn’t get the shot. Yeah. Yeah. Yep, I told her that, but she didn’t believe me, no I get it”—he placed his hand over the phone, saying, “Poppy, that’s it, we’ve lost it, two grand down the drain, voided our contract.”

“I really don’t care by the way.”

“Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah we’ll be back early tomorrow morning. Yep, see you. Anyway. All right. All right, okay, bye—bye.” Jay paused. “How can you not care?”

“I just don’t. I just fail to. He could’ve died.”

“Yeah he could’ve, fucking, jesus, I do know that!”

“And you’re more concerned with us?” She hit her vape in a miffed way.

“It’s just, people die all the time. Why’s he up here this high? He has a walking stick. Why’s he come up this high on the mountain. How the fuck has he? Hang on. Hang on.”

“What are you doing?”

“Calling Steven back.”

“Fuck sake.”

“Steven, Steven, yep, I’m putting you on speaker Steven. Can you hear us?”

Steven said, “All good. Ya.”

Jay said, “So look, Steven—”

“So look, Jay, Poppy. Guys, very, very disappointing that you missed the shot. I get extenuating, right, whatever? Even so. Even so. Very disappointing.” His voice was always more pronounced on the phone—that of a politician, tempering himself for social inferiors. Plum lite. Ersatz Eton.

Poppy said, “This old guy, he could’ve died?”

“Is that Poppy, Poppy, I get that.”

“So? What were we supposed to do? It’s just one picture.”

“Yeah, just a picture, just our brand being soiled guys, c’mon guys. So what if Prada now thinks we’re unreliable? It’s not one two-grand miss. It could be twenty, forty grand over the next couple years. Right guys? So you see why it’s disappointing.” As he spoke you could picture the tilt of his head, the blocky chin resting on the fist, the Brando, the Mussolini mouth.

“It is disappointing, Poppy. Steven’s right.”

“Shut up Jay. Listen Steven, what on earth would you have done then?”

“Well I wasn’t there. I can’t know all the possible permutations of a situation I wasn’t in. But it’s likely, thinking abstractly, thinking hypothetically, isn’t it likely that there was another solution? Like, move him a bit.”

“Move him a bit? What the fuck?”

“Move him, I mean, get the shot, wait for the ambulance. Presumably it didn’t arrive instantly. Presumably there was a lull.”

“A lull, this man could be dead and you’re talking lull?”

“Well what did you do in the meantime? You had, ample, ample time to get the shot. And it’s only twenty percent for me, four hundred quid, okay, not important. But it’s the two grand you’ve missed and all the future potential two grands. So, so disappointing guys.”

“We’ve fucked it Poppy.”

“Shut up Jay. We haven’t. We acted human.”

Steven said, “Acted human; isn’t every action you could have performed fundamentally human, Poppy, being, as you both are, humans? Fundamentally speaking, really, was this guy not on death’s door anyhow? Really?”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Poppy stop, give me my phone back.”

“I’m hanging up on you now, Steven.”

She did. It became wonderful quiet nighttime, there, in the Bay of Naples, full of summer bugs and warmth and the slow, far-off heave of waves. Twinkling ferries and yachts and tankers moved imperceptibly, another set of stars in another darkness. Jay hit his vape.

“Well you sure fucked that mate.”

““Mate”, Jay, when have you ever called me mate?”

“I don’t feel like calling you babe, babe.”

“Okay mate.”

“Stop.”

“I feel like I’m the only one who’s got any sense of compassion here?”

“What, in all of Capri? All of Italy? You’re mental.”

“No, of you, Steven, me.”

“Well we don’t give Steven twenty percent to be compassionate. We give him twenty percent to get us work.”

“Work is not worth the trade-off of killing people.”

“We aren’t killing people. We didn’t kill that old guy.”

“I meant me.”

“You’re not dead.”

“Not literally, no.”

“Don’t get you.”

“You’re misunderstanding me intentionally, Jay.”

“Okay. Cool. Shall we get off this fucking mountain?”

“Gladly.”

“Shall we stop being sanctimonious and up our own arse for a second babe?”

“Oh fuck off. Fuck off.”

*

After a humid, distant, hotel-bed night of recrimination, they got up for the half-six ferry. Poppy led the untalkative, half-asleep checkout, Jay apparently fascinated by the live FTSE feed on his phone. They left the hotel under greige dawn. Capri screeched with the early shuntings of café shutters. Just like Lisson Grove and childhood and rain which fell like snow. Those birds which had awoken stayed silent.

Poppy was only treated to dialogue when there were things needing talking about: passports, booking emails, apt queues. Otherwise, Jay had his cap on, hoodie up, and AirPods in. He maintained his aloofness until he wished to talk, which he did when they found seats on the ferry. Blue leather, sticky. A smell of bleach, croissants, and vomit. He removed just the one AirPod.

“We can’t split up, dyou get me, because of our profile.”

Poppy was amazed. “Split up? What?”

“I mean, you know what I mean, we can’t break up now because all our business is tied into us as a brand. Poppy and Jay, I mean.”

“What are you saying to me? What are you trying to say? I’m starting to feel ill. Break up? What are you saying? Where’s this come from?”

Jay’s voice went low and serious and transactional. “Come on Poppy. Things are obviously not working. I don’t think they have been for a while.” He patted her thigh with the flat of his hand.

“We have one row and—”

“It’s nothing to do with the row—”

“How can it not be to do with the row when we’ve just had a row and this is the convo that follows on from it?”

He vaped. “Well no but yeah the row has helped to clarify things.” He said the word “clarify” and it disgusted her.

“Are you serious? Are you joking?”

“Do you think things have been working? Answer truthfully.”

“Yes.”

“Then you can’t be honest with me.”

“No, I honestly do. I love you, Jay?”

“You can love me and not think things are working out. That’s not, they’re not separate, what’s the phrase? Both of those things can be true.”

“Do you love me?”

The ferry had been moving, and she hadn’t noticed. At her words he looked out over the thick, texturous sea. Watching blank grey spikes and voids. His eyelashes long and in concert with the brim of his cap, two curves aiming to the same vanishing point. They blinked and he turned to her.

“Well it’s not about that—”

“Do you? Have you ever?”

“Of course I have. Whether I do now. That I don’t know.”

“So this is how you break up with me? I feel sick.”

“That’s seasickness, here.” He gave her a paper bag from the net pocket of the seat in front. She tore it from his hand so that it fell to the carpet.

“Fuck off. You’re really ending things like this? I can’t believe it. Jay. Jay I can’t believe this?”

“No I’m not. I said. I think we need to think really carefully. Because how are we going to continue to, what’s the word, not monetise, but, dyou get me, how are we going to continue our work? We’re not worth anything like we are together, alone.”

“Yeah. Yeah Jay. I agree. I agree. Yes.”

“Great. That’s so good. That’s so productive.”

“I’m fucking? joking? Being sarcastic? Are you real?”

“What? How is it not important. Our finances—”

A rushed announcement came through a broken loudspeaker in Italian, or perhaps Neapolitan; they understood it because it matched circumstance. The ferry pitched up as it hit a wave, which Poppy thought must be vast. They were pressed back into the leather of their seats, sweating. And as they rode out the wave, the front of the ferry slammed down into the water. They were flung forward into the leather of the seats ahead. She hit her head. His elbow banged her awkwardly.

“Fuck, sorry.”

“Now I feel seasick Jay. I feel really fucking seasick.” She stopped and put a hand to her mouth and sounded a resonant low stomachy Om, as if she were in yoga class.

“It’s all right. It’s waves. Here.” He took her hand. He then placed his other hand on their hands. Holding her while she struggled with her innards.

“I feel sick, no, no.”

“Come here.” Now he took his hands away and wrapped a whole arm around her like a huge warm tumbledried lint-smelling blanket. His large arm, holding her. Poppy nuzzled; she felt that she was at a point of surrender in which, given her nausea, given what was collapsing, she might as well lose herself in totally, might as well submit into a passivity which was appealing because it had, in a manner, power over what dominated it. It was like being sick and accepting being sick—was, indeed, sickness. Many kinds of sickness, together.

She hated him, was terrified, loved him dearly, hurt in every pore, and he comforted her, he comforted her, he was such a great comfort.

*

Safe on the Naples quayside they resumed their discussion. Jay had been talking about their becoming a “business unit”. Ending their relationship, but staying as one for the sake of their brand. To Poppy, this was literally what Hell must’ve been. Not just to have the loss of the thing, but to be daily confronted in your grief with its consolation’s undermining. And he hit his vape and breathed blueberry air out of both nostrils.

She said, “So you’re more worried about how this affects your bank balance than our feelings?”

“Yeah. I am, yeah. Because all the feelings are dead.” He was cold brilliance, failing to look at her. Sitting on a block of concrete he had his knees drawn up and his hands holding his ankles and one hand also holding his vape, and he had his hoodie tight and looked off into nothing, eyes squinting.

“They can’t die.”

“They have for me.”

“You can’t not have a past anymore.”

“Well I’m not very big on regrets. So.”

“So you’re saying goodbye, you have no regrets, your feelings are dead, it’s basically as if I don’t exist, but you want to go on having some sort of financial relationship with me?”

“Like, a form of that, yeah. I didn’t never love you. I’m not sure I don’t love you right now. But this—this what-we’ve-got? I want it to be different to that. Something else.”

“You’re so callous. So fucking callous.”

“It’d be more callous of me to stay with you lying.”

“To say it like this though.”

“How can I say it in a way that makes what I feel any less true? It’s going to hurt however I say it. God. Let me at least have recognition from you that I’m treating you like an adult. Give me that. Fucking jesus.”

The sea seemed to’ve relaxed now. The sky was still greige. After holding on through the hike down the mountain, through the nighttime streets, in their humid bed, checking out of the hotel, getting to the ferry, waiting for the ferry, boarding the ferry, almost throwing up on the ferry, embracing, disembarking, sitting down on cubes of concrete rebar, hearing the words “business unit” uttered by her boyfriend to describe their love, Poppy finally, against her willed dignity, broke—and she cried desolately, that warm grey Naples morning.

*

You couldn’t’ve said they didn’t try. She started off saying they needed distance, and he granted her a week. A week without messaging. They hadn’t gone a day without messaging in five years—not one day, perhaps no more than nine or ten hours, sleep excepted. Jay moved in with a mate. The spare room would’ve been too close. Into the emerging gulf Poppy Deliveroo’d fried chicken, cheesecakes, muffins, iced coffees, and had them in bed, their bed, which she was beginning to perceive as her bed, and changed the sheets to those she liked most, which he disliked, and changed them back to the ones which still held a little of his smell. Then he sent her a “hey”. She replied. He replied. They began talking. Then, on neutral ground, a pub, they met up. He said quite openly he regretted how he’d done things; she regretted that “things” had had to happen. Still, though, he had his idea of the business unit. She eyerolled past that. But next time, they relapsed, fucking when they shouldn’t have. He stayed over. The morning proved difficult.

Being a business unit entailed going to various holidaylike locations to take romantic photos devoid of all romance. They went to restaurants and went ice skating and had bubble tea; they tried pumpkin carving and go-karts and yachting; backdrops included orchards, fields, fjords, skyscraper viewing decks, decks to view skyscrapers, beaches, jungles, gardens, vineyards. Much of this was expensable to Steven’s agency. They had successful weeks of this, during which Jay grew colder whenever Poppy drew nearer. He seemed to be resisting any convincing she might do, any action which might bring them back to what they were. When on trips, he insisted first on separate beds, and then on separate rooms. Stung, Poppy began texting other guys, but with no conviction.

Two months into the refracted form of their relationship, Poppy and Jay walked into Paddington Station, and a young girl, thirteen or fourteen, stopped them.

“You’re Poppy and Jay.”

“Nah,” Jay said.

Poppy was silent.

“You are. Look.” As if to prove to them who they were, she pulled out her phone and brought up their Insta.

“They do look like us, yeah,” Jay said.

“You’re them. I love you guys.”

“What’s your name?”

“Perdita.”

“Great name.”

Perdita turned now. “You’re Poppy. You’ve got incredible outfits like oh my fucking god. I’m like constantly yearning for your looks, you know? Like, amazing.”

Poppy was still silent. Some jagged hurt entered into her. It rose warm to her temples and throat. That this random fan—that she might be able to cause that? She saw that Jay saw her feeling, and he quickly moved them on, fobbing Perdita off with a quick selfie. The girl squealed, left them, more interested in her prize than what it depicted. And Poppy’s face flushed as it had on the ferry. Being known as his girlfriend for the sake of branding? To ardent children?

She roused herself. She told him she couldn’t, wouldn’t do it. Fuck Steven, fuck money. He tried to soothe, to calm. For himself—he did so for himself, she realised. Why had she allowed herself, in her desperation, to be carried along? With Jay as the protagonist of both their lives? This time, he cried, and she didn’t know why it should be this time. If the breakup had meant so little—why now did the finalisation of what he’d begun matter to him? Poppy left him, left Paddington, went out into London, alone.

*

What she was to lose, then, was this: they’d first met on a cold day, and, over drinks, he’d taken her two hands to warm in his two hands. It was before the Second Lockdown. They’d been sat outside, under faux furs and patio heaters. It’d been cocktails—espresso martinis for her, Manhattans for Jay. Because their love had yet to thrive, they hadn’t had to capture anything, and so, looking back, she found she had no photographs. (She had known this already.) She’d known that they’d been too caught in the moment to care about pics for posterity, about memories other than those being made. His teeth hadn’t been overwhitened then. She’d not gone in for whole foods. She knew these things through a forced recollection. Five years ago; and only their then-casual social media presence; and no Steven; and no deadlines. Working at the florist; he at the bodyshop garage. Jay’d been nervous and made joke after joke, half of them landing, but all of them earnest. She’d liked, more than any ability to tell good jokes, that he felt the need to tell them, in order that he might make her enjoy herself. And she’d liked the vulnerability his chumminess meant.

He was attentive. Flowers, and paying, and asking after her, and texting goodnight and good morning—yes, these, but also with a raw care for what she desired, for where her life was headed and how he could be of help. A couple of friends had supposed it was just about fucking. “10/10 fittie tbf.” Did they see this side of him, though? How he put a pillow on his chest for her when they watched films on his laptop? How he’d always be first up, always ready with yoghurt and fruit and honey? Granted, he was gorgeous. There was no changing or avoiding that great fact. But she wouldn’t’ve been with him had he not other qualities of character that made him more than another model. (She’d had her share, and, besides vapidity, narcissism was their main trait, no doubt an occupational hazard.) There was something about him.

Had this past Jay gone? Or was the present Jay always latent? How could his major new selfishness have been within the man she’d met five years before, who’d had puppyish rizz and real self-doubt?

In the end, it wasn’t missing one shoot that was to damage their income, but the general breakdown of their love. She would now have lost the whole career to have Jay back as he was in the beginning. They did some desultory ex-to-ex texting. He seemed depressed, or he seemed to wish her to take away the impression he was depressed, or he so failed to put effort into their messaging that it was, in effect, as if he were depressed, at least from her perspective. Poppy met him for three or four coffees, trying together to parse the breakup. They didn’t swear or shout or cry. They came to recognition. The business unit ceased, and with it all their moneymaking. ‘Poppy and Jay’ was archived, and later sold. Fitting, that romance and finance went at once. One thing mundane, quantified, ubiquitous, deeply understandable; the other thing an unclutchable enigma. Where did their passion go, their kindness? The love for which they had been struggling? It had ended, slowly, and continually, and irrevocably.

*

Life would have to recommence. So she said to herself. By New Year’s, she had oodles of resolutions. To write a book, to learn Spanish, to take up guitar again. Cooking: Provençal recipes from Elizabeth David, of red-yellow tomatoes, oils, olives, rich chicken and fowl, garlic, pine nuts, capers, white beans, sautéed fish. Her old gym-and-yoga routine, but focused, with a notepad, with goals. She moved in with a group of girls and got a job at a charity doing social media marketing.

Poppy went on walks now. She loved to see spring arrive. She loved the ache of a hard walk, and the warmth of your body in the cold. Snowdrops, et cetera. Perhaps they were a means of reclaiming a way of seeing the world. For a long time, she had lived life secondhand. All the migratory birds returned. She would not have known their rhythms before. They drawled and sang. Instinctively going for her vape, Poppy remembered she’d given it up.

On one walk, a Tuesday, late, around sunset, Poppy bumped into Steven walking his dog. Why was he at the Heath? He spoke; she was too overwhelmed.

“Poppy, hi! Been ages. How are you? How are you getting on?” His enormous tilted block of head, like that concrete rebar that morning.

“Oh, fine. No, yeah, really good actually. Thanks. And you? Your kids okay? Miriam?”

“Miriam, the kids, yeah they’re all good. Tom’s at uni now. Durham.”

“Can’t believe it.”

“Ya. He’s eighteen.”

“Wow.”

“I know. Old fart like me starts to feel like a very old fart when you have a son at uni.”

There was a momentary lull—he seemed to see beyond her—within her—and she said at last, “And Jay? Do you see him?”

“Oh, Jay. Yeah. Haven’t you seen our posts?”

“No. Deleted Instagram.”

“You did? Well, good for you. I know I shouldn’t be saying that. But yeah, Jay and Lily are doing pretty well. I think they’re up to 600k followers now.”

“Lily?”

“He didn’t—ah. Lily’s his new girlfriend. I say new. Must be six months now.”

“Right, yeah of course. No, I did know. He told me. I’d forgotten that was her name.”

“They seem pretty happy. And you? What are you up to?”

“Oh, marketing for other people now instead of doing my own stuff. It’s slightly more serene.”

“That’s great. I’ve never really understood how all my clients do it.”

“And who’s this?”

“Oh I haven’t introduced you to Tallulah. Yeah. She’s allowed outside now.”

A floppy spaniel puppy. “She’s amazing. The big brown eyes.”

“I know. She likes you.”

Tallulah did like Poppy. She jumped up to her knees and nipped her fingertips.

“Well I should probably be getting on.”

“Me too. Anyway, Poppy, be in touch. Would be good to see you back in the business.”

“Thanks. I’ll consider it.”

“See you.”

“See you, Steven. Bye Tallulah. Good girl. Good girl.”

*

Lily. He couldn’t, could he, have chosen a girl who wasn’t also named for a flower? Poppy. Lily. Poppy and Jay. Lily and Jay. The same rhythm, the same letter Y.

*

She recalled the morning she left her mum’s flat in Lisson Grove. You still wore facemasks then. Jay had been so boyish, renting a Luton van, insisting on carrying everything. He pulled up onto the curb and she was unduly terrified he’d get a ticket. “Loading—it’s loading, people understand loading. They’re not gonna care. I’ll say I’m a bailiff.” She’d said, “In a way, you are.” He laughed, carrying boxes of her life into the cold white fridgelike back of the van. Later, they rode high in the cab and he drove fast, sort of eloping, sort of growing up, headed for Highgate and a half decade of tarnished ease. That evening, sealed boxes arrayed on the living room carpet, they lay on the floor and fucked, not even waiting to have assembled the bed, nor waiting to let the memoryfoam breathe.

*

Tucked up under covers in mad darkness that night she redownloaded Instagram and searched lilyandjay and found, the first result, his new account and his new girlfriend, a girl who seemed to resemble her, Poppy, in ways superficial and beyond superficial, down to their hip-to-breast ratio, their height, the shade of their hair, the clothes they wore. (The latter could be forgiven if they’d been provided as freebies, but in the choices from the packages of clothing sent to them by brands they appeared to have the same eye, the same manner of selection, to favour the same colours.) Poppy couldn’t help but let the words “improvement” and “upgrade” move through her mind. And in the style of pic uploaded, was there any difference? The shots were the same: he had merely supplanted her with another face.

Jay was wrong for her, he was limited, his intelligence was nothing like hers. He had been cruel, and, worse, he had been honest about his apathy. He was flawed, narrow, finite, in much of himself still a boy, and he was moody, fitful, fickle, often sour; yet, hadn’t he been, for a while, what life was for her? For a few years, he was the end of all her means. He launched ships, and every path led to him.

For a few years—now was now, though. The horror of being an influencer which she had escaped was this: she could see that, anyone could see that, on their individual profiles, Jay (120k) had fewer followers than Lily (250k). That life and worth could be so quantified—it wasn’t worth the qualifying. It was so blatant as to be beyond analysis. It was just a cause for tears. She was freezing in bed that night, even with the heating on. Her toes and soles would not warm. Jay still making content, headed newly to the same places.

Driving down the road in Lisson Grove they’d gone over the canal and past the cricket ground and she hadn’t been able to keep her hands away—there he was, the forever man, and she clutched his left thigh through his cargoes. He laughed and pretended to brush her away, but he didn’t really want to, and she saw from the swelling of the fabric that the whole thing was as exciting to him as to her. She wouldn’t go further—that was enough, and the fact of its tantalisation was more gratifying than taking the next steps would be. Wasn’t it lovely that the comfort and safety of a new life might be visualised in the old ways, men as boys, so ready to be understood, so eager and madcap and excitable? Poppy had no such methods herself. He drove the roads with his teeth grinning every mile. She was acting forward, while, inside, never having felt more innocent, nor more glee, nor more beautiful apprehension at this beginning of beginnings.

Yet. Under covers in the dark she stared at Insta. Their followers, together, Lily and Jay’s were about double what hers with Jay had been.

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